


Puma

by bluemoonthree



Category: TOMORROW X TOGETHER | TXT (Korea Band), 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blood and Injury, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Found Family, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Character Death, Nothing too explicit, OT5, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Protectiveness, Puma Shifting, Soft Choi Soobin, Violence, Whipped Choi Yeonjun, Yeonbin, alternate universe - puma, basically abo without the dynamics and instead of shifting into wolves its pumas, marked mature due to the violence and discussions of abuse, shifting, some fluff I swear, sookai brothers, taegyu, tags will be added later on as to not spoil anything
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:35:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 15,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25394725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluemoonthree/pseuds/bluemoonthree
Summary: All that Choi Yeonjun knows of the world lies within the steel bars of his cell. He once knew of friendship but had been taken away from his friends, long ago. Despite the cold reality of incarceration and isolation, all of Yeonjun longs and yearns for freedom. For himself, for his friends. Longs to experience what every human could. One night, he finds the door to his cell open and soon witnesses the little that he did know of the world, crumble before his eyes.Based on the Puma MV.
Relationships: Choi Beomgyu/Kang Taehyun, Choi Soobin/Choi Yeonjun
Comments: 20
Kudos: 82





	1. chapter 1 - west side, east side

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello!!! 
> 
> i am here with my first official txt story!! aaaa
> 
> i have been writing this since puma came out, which i realize now that ITS BEEN A MONTH AHFKUHF i probably kept it in the dark for way too long and now that the hype for puma has subsided idk if anyone will even want to read it but oh well. I don't want to explain too much of this universe here because the mystery is something i played around with and i think i did a decent job for my first ever world building attempt. don't worry if you're too in the dark in the beginning, it will all make sense soon enough and keep in mind that the boys themselves don't know much of the world.
> 
> the pov starts slightly pragmatic but the narration gets longer and more detailed as it goes on! 
> 
> i really hope you enjoy it and really recommend listening to puma with the subtitles before going into this! it might help you get in the mood!
> 
> \- [puma mv](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImTgS5OXgbU)

**chapter 1 - west side, east side**

Yeonjun never met his mother. 

The thought unexpectedly conjures itself in his brain as his scorched feet pound against the ground. His heart pulsed so loud he was surprised he could hear anything beyond that. 

Yeonjun never got to look into his mother’s eyes or to touch her or to hear her voice. All he knows about her is that one of the human keepers once said he looked just like her. 

He turns blindly inside the penumbra of the empty halls. The exit was on the west wing, right? The human with the big black eyes had said so. Or was it the east? He for some reason couldn’t remember. The only thing on his mind was the command for his legs to run, and weirdly enough, his dead mother.

With a low growl Yeonjun dismisses the dilemma and forces himself to run even faster. West or east, it didn’t matter anymore. Because for the first time, he was free.

...

He had no idea why things were the way they were. Why they were kept behind steel bars and isolated from their families and kind. The only reason Yeonjun knew that there was another world besides the grey and cold one he was born into, was that the more cruel humans liked to describe it to them. To torture them with the idea that they would never escape, that this was the price to pay for their ancestors actions. 

Yeonjun didn’t know what his ancestors could have possibly done to grant their species with a lifetime of imprisonment.

But his deep rooted yearning for freedom only flourished when he was an older cub. Only came when he was separated from his friends because he was too old and big for the humans from the Outside to pet anymore. His dark coat too rare for him to be risked around other _animals_ that could hurt him.

Yeonjun’s first night in his single cell had been the darkest. His whole body ached from being thrown into the cold floor and his ears rang from the sound of their bangs on the door. All because he had gotten angry and tried to fight the tight collar around his neck. He lifted himself on wobbly legs, watching by the corner of his eyes the humans walking away. Before they left, he heard one of them mutter:

“His dad was the one who tried to escape a couple years back. They got him before he could, though. Shot him right through the chest.”

It was then Yeonjun decided that if the possibility of reaching the Outside had been enough for his dad to risk his life, he would do the same if it was what it took.

...

Yeonjun would never understand humans. 

He knew he himself could look like them if it weren’t for the tight collars they were forced to wear since cubhood. 

The collar always felt cold and heavy against his neck, despite Yeonjun not remembering a time when it didn't imprison him. He didn’t know how they worked but knew what they accomplished. The collars meant many Feles died before ever discovering their human form. All because the real humans were too terrified of being tricked by his kind’s shifting. 

But Yeonjun would never be human, it didn’t matter what he looked like. 

Couldn’t understand a kind that loved to hold them close when they were younger and then throw them into cells for the rest of their lives, years later. A kind that loved to stare at and take pictures of him through a glass wall but didn’t care for his cries at night because it had been years since he’d last seen another Feles. People that could kill his father for simply wanting what was rightfully his; freedom. 

And so, when the new keeper with big shiny black eyes and a big nose started to _talk_ to him, like Yeonjun wasn’t a mindless creature, like they could possibly be equals, Yeonjun found himself more confused than ever. 

It all started mild enough. The keeper would come every morning to give him food and water before Yeonjun was taken to be watched by the Outside humans. 

Every morning he would describe how the weather looked outside. 

It was trivial but something Yeonjun couldn’t help but be incredibly fascinated by. According to the human, the sky was blue. It was lighter during the day and darker during the night. And sometimes it would be open, with no clouds — they were these fluffy white things with water, he had said. Other times the clouds would cover all the blue and water would fall from the sky. It was called rain. Or if it was cold enough, it was called snow. At night, the sky was also decorated by a thousand shiny dots called stars and a thing called the moon. 

Yeonjun had heard of the moon before, but he never really thought he would get to see it one day.

As the weeks dragged on by, Yeonjun looked forward to every morning for a new piece of information about the world he dreamed of, every hopeless night. 

And then, everything changed. 

“The moon, the sun and the stars all rise in the east,” the human muttered to Yeonjun one day. 

He must have seen the confusion in Yeonjun’s yellow eyes and so he said.

“Your freedom will rise eastward as well.”

Yeonjun didn’t have to be told more to understand. The way out of this prison was east. He didn’t know how he would get there, or what “there” was. But he couldn’t live in the shadows for any longer. 

“My friends?” Yeonjun spoke for the first time in years. His voice was raspy, barely above a growl. But he had to ask, couldn’t bear it if he hadn’t.

Yeonjun avoided thinking about Soobin, Beomgyu, Taehyun and Hueningkai because it always hurt him more than he could afford. Because he missed them deep in his bones. 

Missed little Kai, who had been no more than a tiny cub last time he’d seen him. Always following his older brother Soobin around. Missed the way Beomgyu loved to jump on his back and play fight until they were separated by prying human hands. He missed the rare moments Taehyun, who had also been so young, would curl up next to him at night and only leave when they were forced to. Yeonjun missed Soobin, his best friend, the one who always made him laugh with his sweet nature and comforting touches.

He wasn’t sure if he would be able to leave this place knowing they were caged somewhere, not experiencing freedom for the first time by his side. 

The keeper’s lips quirked up in the slightest before he spoke.

“Don’t worry, the sky’s not complete without both the moon and the stars alike.”

...

He woke up with the screaming silence of the night. Something inside him urging him to awake, his blood already coursing rampantly in his veins. 

Yeonjun grew up in the darkness so he was able to see amidst it; able to see that something wasn’t right. He was also intimately familiar with the cell, knew all its hard edges and frigid spots. Knew the exact distance between one set of barred walls to the other. Knew which spots were beginning to rust because that’s where his water would be served or where his tears would be shed. 

_He knew something wasn't right._ And when he approached the door to his cell, he feared his heart would stop beating altogether.

The door was open. The lock was gone. Yeonjun could escape.

His mind instantly went to the human with the big shiny eyes and his words.

_“The moon, the sun and the stars all rise in the east. Your freedom will rise eastward as well.”_

Although everything in him screamed to run, to run and run and never look back. To escape this prison if it took his final breath, he still hesitated. His breath was growing labored and his legs felt weak. 

_“His dad was the one who tried to escape a couple years back. They got him before he could, though. Shot him right through the chest.”_

He knew in his heart that dying for freedom was better than whenever the humans decided he wasn’t useful anymore. It didn’t mean he wasn’t scared of death.

No.

He couldn’t afford to stop now, not when he was so close to trapping freedom between his fangs.

And so he ran.

...

Yeonjun never met his mother. 

Yeonjun never got to look into her eyes or to touch her or to hear her voice. 

All he knew was that he looked like her, had her eyes and fur color.

Hearing the guns not far from him, shooting at what he could only hope was not one of his friends, Yeonjun couldn’t help but think about his mom.

He didn’t want to die. Didn’t want his friends to die. But he didn’t want to be held prisoner anymore. He wanted to see the moon like all the humans could. 

Yeonjun didn’t know how his mom had died. But he hoped she felt proud if her son fell today, the same way his father had before him.

...

Yeonjun had no idea of how long he had been running for, the adrenaline in his blood taking his mind off how hot his feet felt or how his every muscle felt sore. 

He turned aimlessly into a corridor and suddenly heard a sound. He strained his eyes on the direction it came. From the thick fog of the shadows creeping by the walls, a pair of clear grey eyes surfaced. They were cold and dangerous and achingly familiar.

Yeonjun’s breath hitched, stopping his feet for the first time since he had left his cell. 

He stared into those eyes for what felt like eternities.

“S-Soobin?” Yeonjun almost didn’t recognize his own voice with how easily it wavered along with his heavy breaths. 

Only then did that cautious stare falter into one of recognition and a big puma with a thick golden coat, stepped out of the darkness. The emergency lights of the hallways were the only source of light there was but Yeonjun’s eyes were trained for the shadows.

And even if not, Yeonjun would recognize him anywhere in any way. That was Choi Soobin and it was probably the only thing he was certain of right now.

“Yeonjun-hyung?” Soobin’s voice was different from the one Yeonjun carried in his memories. 

He reminded himself that the last time he had seen Soobin, he was barely fourteen. This Soobin was almost an adult, and his eyes were hardened and sharpened by the reality he grew up in. He was big — tall, taller than Yeonjun. His voice had but a resemblance of the softness and child-like gentleness it once had. 

But he was still Soobin, matured and hardened or not, and Yeonjun had missed him every single day of the three years they’ve been apart. 

“Yeah,” he let out softly. “It’s me Binnie,” the nickname escaped him before his brain caught up to his speech. 

Soobin’s warm body suddenly collided against Yeonjun’s. The younger rubbed his neck and head against Yeonjun’s affectionately and he could hear how fast Soobin’s heart beated.

“I almost didn’t recognize you, hyung,” he whispers, letting his head rest on Yeonjun’s back. “You blend right into the dark if it weren’t for your eyes,” he mutters mostly to himself.

Yeonjun pressed his nose to the back of Soobin’s neck, where the metal collar didn’t reach, and let Soobin’s scent run through his body. Even like this he still managed to calm Yeonjun down.

The calm was short lived.

“Where are the kids?” his heart twitches at their absence, already conjuring the worst scenarios. 

Soobin abruptly distanced himself from Yeonjun then; his eyes back to their hardened state. 

“I hid them,” Soobin says quietly, holding his gaze low to the ground.

“Why? We should be running,” Yeonjun’s adrenaline resurfaced and his every cell told him to grab his friends and leave. “They could be here in any minute, and we have to head e-east—”

“Kai was shot.”

...

Soobin led him through the darkness, so quietly it made him uncomfortable. 

The hallways all looked the same to him, all long, narrow, cold and dark. He didn’t understand how Soobin could distinguish one from another and find where the others were hiding.

It isn’t long until he nudges a door open, and Yeonjun finally sees Hueningkai laid on the ground, Beomgyu and Taehyun huddled around him.

His first thought was that he didn’t know blood could be that red. 

It was different from when they fed him raw meat and it was still bloody. Seeing the crimson wave spread little by little on Kai’s golden bronze fur made him feel so much he could burst. 

“Yeonjun-hyung,” Taehyun lets out in surprise, as sharp as he’d always been. 

He approached the three, Soobin not far behind him, the boy’s head still high and alert to any sounds from the humans. 

Yeonjun felt like crying when their eyes met his, especially when Kai forced himself to look up to see him.

“Hey, brats,” his voice cracks. “I hope you didn’t give Soobinie too much trouble while I was gone,” he tries to tease but his voice sounds so incredibly sad when he sees them from up close, holding Kai so tight. 

It doesn’t take long for Beomgyu to stand up and bump his head against Yeonjun’s like he always liked to when they were cubs. His bright light coat contrasted the darkness of the room and Yeonjun missed the times when Beomgyu would brighten up his days like it was nothing.

Taehyun came close behind, resting his head on the base of Yeonjun’s neck and watching him quietly with his icy blue eyes. He was their voice of reason since they were cubs. Yeonjun always thought he had eyes older than himself, but he never thought that as much as right now. 

Yeonjun takes a deep breath before leaning down and licking the side of Hueningkai’s face, tasting his sweat, his fear. 

“I missed you, Ning,” he whispers and the youngest gives him the closest he can muster to a smile. 

“You too, hyungie,” Kai’s voice was faint but his eyes were untamable, a flame that had yet to be ceased. 

He was so big now, nothing like the little cub Yeonjun had last saw. He might even be bigger than him, like Soobin was now. 

But he was still so young. 

Too young. 

Too young to be on the icy tiles of the floor, with a bullet inside of him. 

All of them were too young. 

Yeonjun couldn’t contain the immeasurable rage he felt because Hyuningkai shouldn’t be on the verge of death when he had barely begun to live.

“I never saw my own blood before,” the youngest whispers, staring at the red pool by his side that grew by the minute.

Yeonjun wished he never had to.

...

“What’s your plan?” Yeonjun asked Soobin, the two of them at the corner of the dark storage room. 

Yeonjun still couldn’t help but stare back at Kai, Taehyun and Beomgyu, the two oldest making sure he wasn’t alone with his thoughts.

Soobin still hadn’t directly acknowledged Kai since he brought Yeonjun to their hideout, not once looking at the youngest. Yeonjun could only imagine the pain he felt at the critical state of his little brother. 

But Soobin had to have a plan.

They couldn’t just stay in this storage room waiting for what would happen first; Kai’s death or getting caught. 

They couldn’t.

Soobin was restless, Yeonjun could see it in his eyes, the way they would jump from place to place.

“We’ll wait until the humans find us, it shouldn’t take long. They have the resources we don't, to take care of Ning, and then he’ll be fine,” Soobin said so quietly Yeonjun feared not hearing him if they weren’t close. “They’ll lock us up again but at least we’ll be alive.”

His words hit Yeonjun like a brick. 

What did he mean let themselves get caught? 

Had Soobin lost his mind?

“We can’t be caught,” he shook his head vehemently. “We absolutely can’t. We have to go east, we have to escape!” he continued, his voice bordering desperation. “I’ll carry Kai on my back if I have to, I don’t care what it takes.”

Soobin frowns.

“If we go out there we’re risking everyone’s lives!” he bites back, his clear grey eyes lit on fire but Yeonjun could see that he was scared. 

Soobin was scared for his life and his friends like Yeonjun was, but he wouldn’t let that stop him from speaking. Wouldn’t let Soobin’s fear — much like he didn’t let his own, steal their freedom.

“If we stay here then we’ll _all_ be dead!” Yeonjun says louder than he probably should’ve. He knows the other three have stopped their conversation to listen but he can’t bring himself to care. “You really think they’ll save Kai after _shooting_ him?” he laughed bitterly. “They won’t. They’ll kill us too for daring to escape,” his breath was heavy and his heartbeat irregular in his chest.

“How can you know?” Soobin was not backing down. And although he loomed over him, Yeonjun wouldn’t let himself be intimidated.

“Because that’s what they did to my father!” his voice bounces inside the room like a roar and then; nothing. The deafening sound of silence rang in his ears before he spoke up again. “My father tried to escape and they shot him. They didn’t try to capture him back. They just killed him.” 

Soobin looks into his eyes with emotions Yeonjun could not understand, but he couldn’t understand half of his feelings either. So he just kept talking. 

“I want to be free, Bin,” he lets out a pathetic chuckle. “You guys at least had each other, but I had no one. I can’t live like this anymore, I’d rather die free than inside a cell.”

The younger puma looked at war, not sure what to do and Yeonjun saw that he too was too young to be in a position like this. So for just a second, he bumps his head against Soobin.

“Soobin-hyung,” Hueningkai speaks up from afar, and Soobin looks at him for the first time since they got here. 

“Yeah, Ning?” his voice was soft but they barely held a candle to the amount of affection in his once cold eyes. 

“I want to be free too.” 

Soobin stared into the dark for seconds, maybe minutes, Yeonjun couldn’t possibly know. Then he sighed.

“Okay, we’ll leave and head east. But we’ll have to be careful. The men with the guns are not far behind us.”

...

Yeonjun remembers the days when they were all younger and were allowed to be together. 

The humans took them away as soon as they were old enough to be apart from their mothers, to later be kept in the same cell until they were fifteen years old. 

That was around the time they were too grown to look like babies anymore and the human visitors started to get scared of petting them. After that, it was a lifetime of grasping glimpses of the world through bars and glass walls and the humans who came to watch them.

It hadn’t been a bed of roses then either. Sometimes Kai would cry because he missed his mom and Soobin would cry because he knew she had been killed after completing her duty of birthing Kai. Sometimes Yeonjun would cry because he never got to know his. Or Beomgyu would because he'd never see his older brothers again. And some nights when everyone was asleep, Taehyun sniffed quietly because he knew that cell would be their entire lives. 

Still, the years they spent together were a paradise compared to the years Yeonjun spent alone. Better than staring at the same walls everyday and not having a single person to talk to, in three long years. Not having a warm body to curl up next to when it was winter and the humans didn’t care to keep him comfortable. 

Counting the time until insanity took over him. 

Yeonjun remembers how they all used to play house when they shared a cell.

“No, no,” Yeonjun would shake his head. “I’m the dad, Soobin is the mom.”

Soobin would chuckle and then say. 

“Then Taehyunie is the older brother and Gyu is the youngest,” and Beomgyu always complained that they were only a few months apart in age and that wasn’t fair. “And Ning can be the kitty.”

No part of their life had been a bed of roses. Yet Yeonjun would definitely choose in a heartbeat to play house, instead of feeling Kai’s warm blood spreading against his back. Anything rather than Kai’s body weighing down his shoulders while the gunshots were too close for his legs to slow down, despite every one of his muscles imploring him to do so. 

But the laser lights bounced off the walls and he could hear leather boots against the floor and that’s how Yeonjun knew if they didn’t get away now, they never would. 

So they ran as fast as they could, Soobin sticking close to his side in case anything happened to Hyuka. Beomgyu and Taehyun looking over each other’s shoulders every time a particularly loud sound was heard behind them. 

Bullets started to fly and Yeonjun felt his breath on his throat at every gunshot he heard, praying they wouldn’t hit any of them.

A shot rang out and suddenly, Yeonjun felt weird. 

His shoulder felt heavy, heavier than with Kai’s weight. He glanced down and only saw red; met with the sight of blood, _his_ blood.

He knew then that the wound would eventually slow him down. That he now had to run even faster than before. Because if he slowed down now, they would catch him. 

They would catch his friends, they would kill them. 

He couldn’t stop. 

They were too close, they could not stop. 

_Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop._

Amidst the darkness, Yeonjun thought of his dad. Of what he must have felt when he had tried to escape. Wondered if he was also as scared, yet exhilarated at almost tasting freedom. 

His dad hadn’t stopped. 

Hadn’t stopped until his heart gave out and so would Yeonjun. 

The five turned blindly in the direction they could only hope was east, all the dark hallways looking the same and the only sound in the once quiet night being that of their pants and the guns not far behind them. 

Yeonjun began to feel even weirder.

Every movement his body made felt foreign and distant. All the sounds seemed muffled and distorted. He knew Soobin was yelling at him but he had no idea what. He kept running, and running and running and suddenly he had no idea where to or why. 

But before he could figure it all, they all stopped. 

Suddenly his back was no longer so heavy and the green lights and lasers had evaporated and the air around them was cold. 

Had Hueningkai been lifted off his back? 

Yeonjun’s vision blurred before he caught sight of something beautiful. It was big and quiet and showered him in silverlight. His vision was getting worse and worse but he could see an impossible expense of deep blue and bright tiny dots and Yeonjun smiled. 

He smiled truthfully for what felt like the first time in his life, head tilted high to the sky. 

Yeonjun was feeling drowsy and heavy but before he let slumber take him, he realized his shoulder felt wet and sticky. When once again he saw his own blood, Yeonjun’s thoughts quieted.

All that was in his mind as the world darkened was that he was free. 

Yeonjun was free.

...

Soobin’s mind shattered before his eyes and he had no idea how to assemble it back. 

Because they were free. 

_Free._

The prison that was once all they knew was now only a grey spot in the landscape around them. Looking cold and lifeless and _powerless_ , because it was unable to stop them. 

They escaped. _They were free._

Soobin wanted to look at everything around them for hours on end because the sky was big and the moon was lighting their way above them and his mom had been right. 

This world was beautiful.

Soobin wanted to watch it all forever, but he couldn’t. 

Couldn’t because Kai’s breaths only grew fainter as time rushed down the drain and Yeonjun had just collapsed to the ground. 

Soobin’s heart hadn’t settled ever since they left their cell but now in the quiet of the open sky, it only seemed louder. 

He looked back at the open door they had just crossed and knew the humans wouldn’t give up. They had to hide, get as far away from here as they could.

“Gyu, Hyun, we need to move them,” his voice trembled and Soobin wished he could let them keep the mesmerized look on their faces for longer. “They will come for us, we need to hide.”

Soobin’s breath hitched when he approached Yeonjun and saw the peaceful look on his face. He remembered his words of wishing to die free and felt them bittersweet on his tongue upon seeing the blood rolling off Yeonjun’s shoulder. 

But they weren’t free yet, he realized. Wouldn’t be as long as there were humans chasing them. So Yeonjun couldn’t die now, Soobin would not accept it. Not when the four of them needed him as much as now. 

“Let’s go, hyung, I won’t rest until we’re free.”

The three of them walked, Yeonjun on Soobin’s back and Hueningkai on Beomgyu’s, the sky slowly growing lighter. They moved stealthily until they reached a large rock on the surface of the mountainous landscape around them. Soobin carefully set Yeonjun down, daring to glance at him with a pained expression before rushing to see Hueningkai. 

“Ning, talk to me, what are you thinking?” Soobin’s voice wavered seeing his brother looking quietly up to the sky, his eyelids getting heavier and heavier. 

“The stars are really pretty, hyung,” he whispered against Beomgyu’s back. 

Hueningkai’s pupils were barely visible underneath his hooded eyes and in the dark of the night, but they shone. Soobin swore they were brighter than the stars themselves — but they were fading. 

_No._

Soobin realized they probably shone because they were glossy and that his chocolate irises were barely visible because of how dilated his eyes were. 

“I’m sleepy, Soobin-hyung, I want to take a nap,” he yawns. “Do you think stars take naps too?”

Soobin caught the look on Beomgyu’s face and felt breathless at his teary eyes and the way Taehyun looked at the ground with a hardened expression. 

No. 

_No._

They couldn’t just give up on Hueningkai like this. They couldn’t just accept it.

“That’s silly, Ning,” Soobin says pained. “If the stars take naps, who’s going to light up the sky?” his chest heaves. “You can’t take a nap now, we aren’t free yet!”

Kai blinked slowly.

“But I got to see the sky, I’m happy hyung. And I’m soooo sleepy,” Kai whispers slowly, the words barely escaping through his teeth. 

Soobin’s eyes sting and his voice cracks, “But there is still so much to see, Ning, you can’t sleep now!”

He bumps his head against his brother’s and knows his tears are running wild now, just like Beomgyu’s are. 

“Please, I’m so sleepy…”

Soobin shuts his eyes tight and refuses to open them again. What’s the point of seeing the world if Kai won’t? 

He sniffs and presses his head against his brother’s neck, hearing his faint pulse.

“But Kai, you can’t,” he sobs.

The silent of the night seemed solidary, the moon shining on them looking grieved. And Soobin hated it all with his entire heart because _no_ , Hyueningkai was _not_ going to die. He would not allow it. 

_He couldn’t._

That is when another voice is heard.

“You escaped,” the breathy voice sounds relieved. “Quick, come with me, the others aren’t far.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....
> 
> yeah so im gonna leave now before i let out too much of what is coming hihi
> 
> i plan for this to be three chapters long and the next one should come in one or two weeks depends on how i do with my other story, mend your soul!
> 
> if you're looking for updates on the story or just want to interact, come find me on twt!! i hope you enjoyed it!!


	2. chapter 2 - the world we meet is alien

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm a day (or two?) late but this chapter is MASSIVEEE it's more than double the size of the other one and i cut out some parts... so the story might end up having 4 chapters instead of three but i'm not entirely sure yet!
> 
> enjoy your 10.8k words!

**chapter 2 - the world we meet is alien**

Yeonjun wakes up in an unfamiliar place. 

The ceiling facing him is white, and everything around him is bright and smells so _clean_. 

He wonders if this is heaven, if he really died. 

He remembers the moon shining on him and thinks to himself that it was a good way to go.

Before he could entertain the thoughts of afterlife any longer, however, Taehyun’s face came into his field of vision. 

“Yeonjun-hyung?” he asks quietly, his cold eyes reflecting so much relief Yeonjun is taken aback. 

Had something bad happened?

Yeonjun looks at him silently, his senses still getting used to their surroundings. 

His shoulder throbbed.

“W-where are we, Hyunie?” Yeonjun whispers, squinting his eyes at the harsh light. 

Taehyun looks at him with a blank expression before staring off at the wall behind Yeonjun.

“I don’t know,” he says honestly and Yeonjun tenses up. “But I think we’re safe, for now.”

Yeonjun lifts himself off what he now realizes is a bed and feels his shoulder ache more as he does so. The softness of the bed felt strange, he’d been sleeping on cold floors for so long. 

The bed was almost bigger than his entire cell, Yeonjun realizes.

“You should be careful, hyung,” Taehyun says softly, an edge of tenderness to his words. “The humans shot you in the shoulder.”

Yeonjun stills at the memory of his own blood. The memory of him in pain as he ran with Kai on his back and the red pool that he saw before the world darkened. But his thoughts soon stray because the mention of being shot instantly reminds him of Hueningkai.

“Hueningkai,” Yeonjun says breathless. “Huening — how is he?”

Yeonjun’s heart stutters at the sullen look on Taehyun’s face.

“He lost a lot of blood,” his blue eyes seem distant, as if he was reliving the memories of Hueningkai’s injury. 

Yeonjun’s eyes began to water before Taehyun could even finish speaking.

“He wouldn’t have made it if we hadn’t been found,” Taehyun sighs and Yeonjun almost chokes before also sighing deeply after him, shutting his eyes tight.

“So he’s okay?” he asks, hopeful.

“He’s not,” Taehyun shakes his head. “But he’ll be. He’ll survive.”

Only then does Yeonjun’s heart slow down and his breathing evens out.

“He hasn’t woken up yet but Soobin-hyung and Beomgyu-hyung are there with him,” Taehyun continues.

They both look at the clean bed he sat on and silence fills the room.

Yeonjun catches himself thinking of what Taehyun had said before. 

_“If we hadn’t been found.”_

_Found_. They were found and probably brought to this place. But by who? 

It’s only then he notices the collar he’d been forced to wear all his life, was gone. Taehyun’s was as well, his neck free. 

_They could look human if they wanted to, now._

His heart hiccuped in his chest at his sudden realization. How had they been freed from their hold? Why?

“Taehyunie, who found us?” Yeonjun whispers, his eyes wide and attentive as he studies everything around him. 

He found himself scared of what he would hear in return.

Before Taehyun could answer, however, someone walked through the door.

Yeonjun’s breath hitches when he recognizes the visitor. 

It was the human with the big eyes and the big nose. 

“You,” Yeonjun mutters quietly and is received with a small smile, his eyes soon wandering to the smaller man beside him.

“Yeah,” the human says quietly. “It’s good to see you again, Yeonjun-ssi.”

Taehyun is quiet next to him and although he doesn’t seem threatened, his eyes were sharp on the two men.

“My name is Jeon Jeongguk, I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you earlier, it would’ve compromised our mission,” the human Yeonjun now knew the name of, spoke. “This here is Park Jimin,” he continues, putting a comforting hand on the smaller man’s shoulder. “He’s just like you.”

Yeonjun meets the man’s sharp eyes and quickly realizes what Jeongguk meant by _just like them._ Park Jimin had the eyes of a feles. A thing no one can acquire or change. A thing so deeply ingrained in all of them since birth, Yeonjun could recognize the quiet anger even if the man looked human. Anger that he knew his eyes reflected back.

Taehyun seems to ease as he recognizes the older feles as well, a quiet sense of trust and solidarity quickly bridging the three of them.

“We thought it’d be better to have him explain it all to you,” Jeongguk continues. “We want you to be as comfortable as possible.”

Yeonjun’s eyes shift back to look into the human ones and catches himself uncomfortable at Jeongguk’s words. He knew that man was the reason he was free, but hearing humans speak kind words felt as intelligible as a foreign language. He couldn’t trust him yet. Not that he would never, just not _yet_. He still even didn’t know why they had been helped.

“The others are still with Hueningkai-ssi, but he should awake soon,” Jeongguk’s calm voice doesn’t waver even if he notices the unease between them. “You can tell them what Jimin-hyung informs you, later,” he tightens his lips and gives them a polite bow. “I’ll be going now, I hope you’ll have a quick recovery Yeonjun-ssi.”

Jeongguk’s eyes look as sincere as he sounds and Yeonjun watches him intently, never having seen a human like this. A human that spoke softly and meant it. 

Jeongguk gives him a short nod before turning to face Jimin. 

He whispers something to the oldest, but Yeonjun couldn’t really catch it. Before he leaves, Jeongguk drops a discreet kiss on top of Jimin’s hair, and Yeonjun’s eyes widen.

“He’s a strange one, isn’t he?” Jimin says softly after Jeongguk is gone, his lips with the slightest of quirks. 

His eyes looked tender at the mention of the other man and Yeonjun watched him with curiosity. 

“I didn’t talk to him for weeks when I first got here, never heard of a human as good as him.” 

Jimin approaches them carefully. He walked quietly, his boots barely emitting sound against the tile floors.

“Where _is_ here?” Taehyun speaks up with an edge of cold aggression and Jimin stops on his feet. “Or better, _what_ is here?”

The unknown is probably consuming Taehyun from the inside out.

The tender look on Jimin’s eyes is gone, and they once again look sharp and blank. Yeonjun realized he liked the other look better.

“Here is freedom,” Jimin lets the words fall out of his mouth in airy sounds. “I know there are probably a million questions buzzing in your mind right now. Not only about this place but about where you escaped, I know,” Jimin’s voice was dark when he said those words and Yeonjun believed he did know, that he understood them. “We’re not even told why we’re held captive or the history of our people or anything about our kind, but I promise I will tell you all soon.”

Yeonjun shares a brief look with Taehyun before they look back at Jimin.

“You are at the Secret Feles Resistance. SFR for short.”

Yeonjun eyes widen and Taehyun’s eyebrows furrow.

“There are multiple secret bases across the country and this is the one in Seoul, one of the most important ones,” Jimin continues, his voice was evenly paced and his expression was carefully blank. “We rescue many feles from captivity, but as of these last couple of years it has become harder. The zoos are more strict and now operations can only be done every few months.”

Jimin watches them quietly, gives them time to digest his words.

“Jeongguk and Seokjin-hyung were assigned to infiltrate your zoo and asses who would have the best chance of escaping and instructing them how to,” he continues after a while. “You five were selected. I am glad you were able to escape, even if there were consequences,” Jimin’s voice sounds the softest then, and his eyes have gone tender again and Yeonjun feels small. 

Feels like a cub all over again, wanting to cry and be comforted because Hueningkai had almost died. He had almost died. 

“Many times our efforts fail because the zoos have no regard for feles lives,” Jimin’s words are so quiet they sound like a whisper. “I almost lost my best friend when I was rescued, five years ago.”

Yeonjun sees Taehyun inch closer to him and lets his tail curl around the youngest. 

“We would have brought you to the base faster but we couldn’t get too close to the zoo for the mission’s sake. Our leader can explain it in much more detail when you feel better,” Jimin looks up from his shoes. “For now, I can take you to see your friends, if you’d like?”

...

Jimin walked in the hallways as silently as he had before; Taehyun and Yeonjun followed not far behind him. Jimin’s every step was quiet and every movement executed with grace that enthralled Yeonjun. There was a definite feline rhythm and quality to how he moved, but Jimin seemed fully at ease with his human form. Yeonjun found himself so incredibly curious; he had never shifted before or met a feles who had. 

He would have to bite his questions and ask them later, however. Yeonjun had to be concentrated on his unfamiliar surroundings.

The halls of the SFR were starkly different from the ones in the zoo. 

They weren’t cold or dark or narrow. The walls didn’t seem to be closing as they walked, like the shadowy ones of the zoo had. Their divergence was jarring and Yeonjun’s eyes struggled to adjust to the brightness of the lights; he’d never been exposed to so much all his life.

Even though there was an odd comfort in how the SFR and the zoo were nothing alike, Yeonjun still made sure to stick close to Taehyun. If anything happened, he couldn’t afford to hesitate to protect his friend.

The way his shoulder throbbed with every step he took, however, told Yeonjun that maybe he wouldn’t do that good of a job. 

“This is it,” Jimin suddenly stops in front of a white door. The wood was engraved but Yeonjun couldn’t decipher what was written. “I’ll give you privacy. But I’ll be back to check on you, later,” Jimin looked down to their eyes and when his lips slightly quirked up, it was his most sincere smile yet. “Good luck.”

Yeonjun nods his head curtly before the man begins to walk away. 

Taehyun and him look briefly at each other before passing through the open door. With the exception of a fewer number of beds, they find the inside of the room very much like Yeonjun’s. White, bright, clean. In this room, however, there was Hueningkai; strapped by tubes and wires to a bed low to the ground. 

Soobin’s head turned quickly as he heard the door open and the worry lines on his face ease out once he recognized the two of them. Beomgyu’s head laid peacefully by Hueningkai’s side on the bed, his lack of response suggesting he was asleep.

“Hyung,” Soobin sounds relieved, and Yeonjun doesn’t miss the fatigue hidden in his eyes or how his voice is hoarse. “I’m so glad you’re awake.”

Yeonjun crosses the room in no time with Taehyun by his side and settles next to Soobin. Yeonjun looks at him gently before stretching his lips in a small smile. 

“And I’m happy you guys are okay, Bin.” 

Yeonjun catches Taehyun fondly watching the way Beomgyu quietly snored and feels his words ring even truer in his chest. He was beyond _happy_ that they were okay; but he’d never been the eloquent type.

Now that he was entirely conscious and alert, Yeonjun fought back against the vivid memories of their escape that wanted to resurface. The surge of adrenaline that threatened to be distilled his veins just at the recollection of the sound of gunshots. Yeonjun fought by continuously repeating to himself that they were safe now, even if the fear still tried to crawl up his limbs and suffocate him.

The five of them were no longer stained of blood, no longer running. The cuts on their faces and bodies were bandaged and healing. They weren’t going to be locked up in the dark again. They were all alive and _free_ , he told himself a thousand times.

Something crept up on his stomach and Yeonjun realized it to be a reluctant sense of gratitude towards the humans, grating inside of him. He didn’t fully know how to feel at the realization but all his thoughts were soon suppressed as his eyes finally landed on Hueningkai. 

Yeonjun’s chest was all at once too heavy for him to normally breathe. Every inhale and exhale taking almost double the effort just to expand and contract his lungs.

Oh _, Hueningkai._

“How is he?” Yeonjung lets out in a restricted sigh, looking at Kai’s blank unconsciousness face. 

Soobin turns his head towards his brother and his eyes waver.

“He almost didn’t make it,” he whispers and Yeonjun shifts closer to him, hating the pain laced in his every word. “The doctors didn’t explain much and I didn’t understand all that they did explain, but I think they were afraid one of his organs was wounded,” Soobin swallows dryly. “I think that wasn’t the case, because he’s okay now. But the humans only told us Huening would survive and let us see him, this morning.”

Yeonjun’s stomach turned at every word but his eyes suddenly widen at the indication that they spent more than one morning in the secret base.

“How long have we been here then?” he’s quick to ask.

Soobin shakes his head looking overwhelmed, “I couldn't tell.” 

Yeonjun’s brow furrows.

“It’s got to be at least two days,” Taehyun adds quietly from where he stood beside them, still watching over Beomgyu. “At least two days,” he repeats more softly this time.

Yeonjun’s eyes zero on Soobin’s sluggish movements and heavy eyes and doesn’t believe that the boy has slept ever since they’ve escaped. Although Taehyun seemed sharper in comparison, Yeonjun still can’t shake the notion that both of them haven’t had any substantial rest in the past two days.

It is then that it settles over him; the image of Soobin, Beomgyu and Taehyun, _alone_. The three of them restless in a foreign place that was runned by humans. Having to trust the lives of their friends on the hands of the kind that had held them prisoner all their lives. Yeonjun imagined how scared they must have been, not able to fall asleep with the uncertainty of their safety. 

Beomgyu only allowing himself to surrender to his fatigue once the humans had promised Kai would survive, that Yeonjun was fine. Scared to wake up and find his friends dead. 

Taehyun waiting alone for Yeonjun to wake up, in an unknown and potentially threatening place. Eating away at himself because for the first time, he had no confidence in his knowledge of the world. 

Soobin being on edge from the moment they were found, going through the turmoil of Hueningkai’s possible death, of Yeonjun’s injuries. Trying to remain strong and promising he wouldn’t relax until Kai awoke. Until he made sure his little brother was alive. 

And Yeonjun feels his heart sink and wishes he had been stronger to support them. To not contribute to their pain. Wished he had ran faster and not gotten hurt.

He shakes his head, a voice in his mind that sounded suspiciously like Beomgyu, telling him it was not the time to be so self-centered. Yeonjun would simply have to do what he could to help his friends, _now_.

“Soobin,” Soobin turns slowly upon being called. “Why don’t you take a nap? You too, Taehyun,” Yeonjun suggests softly, pointing his head in the direction of the spare bed on the other side of the room.

They look at him, confused at the suggestion, probably not understanding where it had come from.

“I know you haven’t rested at all,” Yeonjun explains. 

“How could we in a time like this?” Soobin retorts and Yeonjun’s expression saddens and thinks he too wouldn’t have been able to sleep.

“Well, I’m awake now,” he tilts his head to the side and tries to sound reassuring. “And Kai will soon be too. But it won’t do him any good in seeing you like this,” he adds gently. “You look exhausted, Bin.”

“But hyung—” he starts, his brow furrowed and ready to argue.

“I can watch over him for now,” Yeonjun interrupts with an edge of fondness on his eyes at Soobin’s sleepy expression. “I promise that as soon as Kai wakes up I’ll let you know.”

Yeonjun turns to Taehyun to insist that he did the same and is surprised by seeing his smaller body resting against Beomgyu’s, long asleep. 

Taehyun was probably waiting until someone told him it was okay to do so, not wanting to do it out of his own volition. And so he had given himself to slumber the moment he was allowed to. 

Yeonjun sometimes forgets how young Taehyun truly is, how he is only sixteen. How Hyuka was supposed to turn sixteen in a few weeks time. 

Hueningkai always had a younger quality to the way he portrayed himself; he acted like the youngest. What with his knack for acting cute and touchy nature. But through the years they spent together, Yeonjun learned that Taehyun was more reserved. Not cold or disliking of physical touch, just not as seeking of it as Hueningkai. 

He had a set self-assured expression on his face, like he held all the answers to the world behind his big eyes. There was a certain sense of security Yeonjun got, just by standing next to Taehyun. He looked like someone you could and want to rely on. 

But Yeonjun thought it was unfair of him — of them, to do so. He was the oldest afterall and Taehyun deserved to act like a child, the way Hyuka did. He deserved to not be ridden by worries, weighed down even more by what troubled his hyungs. 

He deserved to be sixteen. 

Yeonjun smiles and feels his chest expand at the sight of the three youngest deep in sleep. Because if he tightened his eyes just right and ignored logic, Hueningkai almost looked like he was simply taking a nap and Beomgyu and Taehyun had decided to join him.

They almost looked free.

Yeonjun turns to Soobin again, not missing the admiration reflected on the younger’s grey eyes. 

“Go rest,” Yeonjun insists although Soobin’s eyes flicker with the threat to turn stubborn again. 

Yeonjun sighs deeply, reality dawning on him as the air leaves and empties his lungs, only to return and fill them up again. His shoulders feel incredibly heavy, all of a sudden.

“There’s a lot we have to face once we leave this room, Bin. Please, let’s take advantage of the only peace and quiet we’ll have in probably a long time.”

Soobin’s expression loses its sleepy edge, and turns serious at the words. Yeonjun fears he made the wrong choice and that Soobin will ask a million questions now. 

“What do you mean, hyung?”

Yeonjun ignores the question and nudges the taller boy towards the empty bed, hissing lowly when his injured shoulder throbbed. 

“Hey, be careful,” Soobin scolds Yeonjun. “You’re still hurt.”

Yeonjun’s eyes soften before the boy. He wanted to tell him but he couldn’t yet.

Soobin wasn’t in the right conditions to have the conversation they needed to. It wasn’t fair to him to be given such critical information when he wouldn’t be able to digest it properly.

And maybe Yeonjun needed some time to think by himself, as well. Try to make some sense of the chaos that was his mind. Even if he thought that to be impossible at this point.

“Sleep, you big dummy. I promise I’ll tell you more when you wake up. You will need a clear mind when I do.”

Soobin finally gave in, his eyes sharp but his body tired. Yeonjun felt relieved when the younger boy lowered his body to the bed, finding solace on the fact that Soobin would escape the chaos that surrounded them, if only for a little bit. 

Yeonjun watched him attentively, only turning around when he thought Soobin was all settled.

“I am really glad you are okay, hyung,” Soobin whispered before Yeonjun walked away. “I don’t know what I would do if I lost both of you,” his voice is at its softest then and when Yeonjun turns around to look at Soobin, he is already asleep.

...

When Yeonjun wakes up — lying on the chilly floor, everyone is still asleep. 

Through his blurry vision he can see Taehyun and Beomgyu now curled into one another, near Kai’s bed. If his eyes strayed further he could see Soobin’s long limbs taking up most of the other bed. 

Everyone’s asleep, except Yeonjun hears the ruffling of sheets not far from him and when he forces himself to see what it is he is met with dark shiny eyes.

“H-Huening?” Yeonjun mutters with the hoarse voice of someone who had just been in deep sleep. Of someone who felt emotions trying to choke him up. 

Hueningkai blinks slowly once, twice and on the third time the corners of his mouth try to quirk up. A tiny moan leaves him before words can and Yeonjun gets closer to the youngest.

“Hey, Ning,” Yeonjun says ever so gently. 

He feared the boy before him would break if not handled with care. Hueningkai’s body that was now bigger than Yeonjun’s, suddenly seemed so frail and small attached to all those tubes and wires. 

“Be careful, okay? You’re probably pretty sore from the gunshot, huh? Take it easy.”

Hueningkai squints his eyes as he makes himself move slower this time.

“Yeah, I know how it is, Ning. My shoulder’s still throbbing but it was way worse when I had just woken up,” he smiles and fights the want to reach out and hold the boy, not sure if he would make things worse. 

“H-hurts,” Hyuka says after settling in a position that made his eyes not look so squinted anymore. “Hyung?” 

“Yes?” 

“Where are we?” Yeonjun feels a prickly sense of déja vu settle over him at Kai’s question.

He sighs. 

“I’ll tell you in a second, Ning, I promise,” he says. “It’s better if everyone is awake for this.”

Hueningkai shuts his eyes softly at that, quietly complying. Yeonjun smiles before settling his gaze over Beomgyu’s sleepy frame. 

The boy was already asleep by the time Yeonjun and Taehyun had come to visit Kai and he continued to snore softly, hours later. Considering Beomgyu was probably well rested by now, Yeonjun decides to wake him up first. His heart wouldn’t let him awake Taehyun and Soobin just yet.

“Beomie,” Yeonjun calls softly, nudging him with his head. 

The boy before him continues to snore softly in his sleep, only awakening once Yeonjun calls him again. 

“Beomgyu.”

The puma blinks a few times before he lifts himself off the edge of the bed with groggy movements. Yeonjun gives him time to get acquainted with consciousness.

“Y-Yeonjun hyung?” Beomgyu finally asks once he is up, big eyes widening at the sight of Yeonjun. “A-ah! You’re okay!” 

Yeonjun tries to repress the small moan of pain that he emits when Beomgyu charges toward him in relief. His shoulder was still sore and the other had managed to nudge it while he tried to nuzzle his face against Yeonjun’s.

“O-oh! I’m so sorry, hyung. I forgot you were hurt!” he distances himself with regret coloring his features and Yeonjun shakes his head. 

“It’s fine, Gyu! It doesn’t hurt as much as it did before,” Yeonjun tries to reassure. “I’m just so glad that you’re okay.”

Beomgyu looks up at him with watering eyes, shattering Yeonjun’s heart at how relieved he looked. 

How scared. 

The tears only fall after Beomgyu sees Hueningkai, however.

“N-Ning! You’re awake!” he sobs. 

This time Beomgyu doesn’t jump — even though Yeonjun knows it to be his first instinct. Beomgyu had learned from what he did to Yeonjun. 

Hueningkai tries his best to smile at Beomgyu but his expression still appears pained. 

“Are you feeling okay? And you, Yeonjun-hyung, are _you_ feeling okay?” Beomgyu’s eyes jump from him to Hueningkai and Yeonjun can’t fight a fond yet saddened smile at how worried he seemed. 

“My shoulder’s a little sore but I think I’m fine, considering they let me leave my room,” Yeonjun says, hoping it would quiet down some of Beomgyu’s concerns.

“E-everything hurts, but I think I’m okay,” Kai says slowly, a small silly smile tugging at his lips. 

Beomgyu looks at the two of them for a while longer, his tears threatening to overflow.

“You, y-you almost died, Ning,” Beomgyu lets out through quivering lips. Yeonjun carefully circles around Taehyun’s unconscious body to get to him. “They put us inside this big black thing and laid you and Yeonjun-hyung on a makeshift bed.”

Yeonjun lays his head softly on Beomgyu’s shoulder and tries not to shiver when he feels Gyu’s cold tears hit his face. 

“A-and they stopped Yeonjun-hyung’s bleeding a little bit, b-but they couldn’t stop yours. There was s-so much b-blood.”

Beomgyu’s words paint a horrifying picture on Yeonjun’s mind. One with violent strokes and aggressive splashes of color. One where tears cascaded down his friend’s eyes as destructively as from a waterfall. 

One where Hueningkai died. 

“He’s okay, now,” Yeonjun says as calmly as he can. “We’re all okay, Gyu.”

Beomgyu turns around to fit his head against Yeonjun’s neck, and Yeonjun can feel as his friend’s body begins to tremble. 

Yeonjun knew that the consequences of their escape would probably impact Soobin and Beomgyu the most. Soobin, because of Hueningkai. Beomgyu, because of his past.

There had been a time when Yeonjun was alone in the cell, a time before the others. He doesn’t remember it well. After all, Yeonjun had been only two years old when he was transferred to the cell that would later become known as theirs. Unusually young to be left alone, but he didn’t have a mother to care for him. And the humans didn't want to keep making up for that fact with their specialized care, for too long. 

He spent a single year alone before Soobin was transferred, like Yeonjun, at the age of two. His mom passed away that year, with the birth of Hueningkai. Soobin didn’t have anyone to care for him anymore, and the zoo didn’t need another orphan to tend to when Soobin could fend well enough on his own. And so cell it was.

Yeonjun and Soobin grew close rather quickly, sheltering one another from isolation. They spent two whole years together before Beomgyu came. Later that year, Taehyun and Hueningkai were made the final additions to the cell.

Out of the five of them, Beomgyu was transferred at the oldest age. He had been four years old, while Yeonjun and Soobin had been two and Taehyun and Hueningkai had been three. 

That’s because Beomgyu had a family. 

A mom and older brothers and a cell to call home. 

He spent the longest time with family, besides Taehyun. Yeonjun, Soobin and Hueningkai’s families were all dead. Even Taehyun, who spent the first three years of his life with a mother, hadn’t had Beomgyu’s luck. 

Taehyun’s mother was crazy. 

A mother that attacked her own son before he could be transferred to his new cell, delaying his transfer so the boy could be properly healed. 

But Beomgyu’s mother was not like that. His mom loved him. His brothers loved him. That’s what Beomgyu always told them. 

He was loved, and that was the reason for his tears for so many years. That and the fact that, one morning, Beomgyu simply woke up to an empty cell. 

His entire family gone. 

At best, they were transferred to another zoo. 

At best, they were dead. 

Beomgyu’s nightmares were rooted in the possibility that they were all sold. 

For that reason, Beomgyu had always been the slightest bit more clingy than the others. More concerned about their well-being, on making sure they were okay. 

He was just that much scared of losing them. So Yeonjun understood why Beomgyu shook uncontrollably in his hold. 

Beomgyu had almost lost his family, _again_.

“I was so scared to go to sleep,” Beomgyu cries and Yeonjun can feel tears prickling his own eyes. “I thought I was going to wake up and you’d be gone,” he shudders and Yeonjun shudders with him.

“We’re here, Beomie,” Yeonjun attempts to reassure again, no longer sure if Beomgyu or himself. “We’re here and we’re all safe.”

“H-How can you know?” Beomgyu swallows and looks up at Yeonjun, his eyes being swallowed up by tears. 

Yeah. 

_How could he?_

“I can’t know for sure,” Yeonjun sighs, sniffing. “But I think we are for now,” he looks into Beomgyu’s stormy eyes. “That’s why I woke you up, Gyu. I have to talk to you, all of you. About where we are.”

...

It wasn’t long until Yeonjun had to wake Soobin and Taehyun up. 

No matter how much he wished they could rest, the truth was that Yeonjun had no idea how much time they had before Jimin returned. How much left of this brief period of truce, almost ridden of the chaos that waited for them beyond that white door. 

And Yeonjun had no idea what would happen when the time came for them to cross it. 

For that, Soobin and Taehyun didn’t have as long to reconcile with Hueningkai and Beomgyu as he had. 

Yeonjun didn’t know what was more heartbreaking. Soobin and Hueningkai’s shedded tears at finally seeing one another, or watching them be briskly dried so the boys could focus on what Yeonjun had to say. 

And as he finds himself standing before his friends, Yeonjun feels uncomfortable.

Not because of the boys themselves, but because of the expression in their eyes.

Expressions of fear. Of uncertainty. 

They looked at him like he held all the answers; like Yeonjun had the sole power to completely destroy their makeshift peace. Not that they were wrong, of course.

But then, he looks at Soobin. Yeonjun looks at him and the thumping in his chest slowly subsides. The clear bluish grey of Soobin’s irises reminded Yeonjun of the cement floor and walls of the zoo, but also of _home_. 

Of the five of them together. 

In a cell, but _together_. 

Like the others, Soobin was nervous about what Yeonjun had to say. Yet he soon rid himself of physical cues of such. Because Soobin always put others before him. Always managed to calm Yeonjun down. 

Yeonjun exhales.

“I don’t really know much,” he begins by saying. “Not any more than Taehyun really, since Jimin-nim talked to the both of us.”

Taehyun meets his eyes and nods with quiet reassurance. 

Yeonjun proceeds.

“What I do know is that we are at the Seoul base of the Secret Feles Resistance.”

He watches as their eyes widen. Huneningkai’s eyes sparkling with curiosity while Soobin and Beomgyu’s reflected their concern. Only Taehyun’s face remained passive as he was already aware of the information.

“T-The Secret Feles Resistance, what, what is that?” Beomgyu asked, Yeonjun able to hear the fear wanting to perspire through his voice.

Taehyun shifts closer to Beomgyu before Yeonjun could answer.

“They rescue feles from zoos,” Yeonjun continues, glad that Beomgyu seemed more relaxed by Taehyun’s side. “That’s how we escaped, the humans that talked to us in the zoo were infiltrated members of the SFR. They were the ones that opened our cells and the ones that brought us here.”

Yeonjun goes quiet then, to let the others digest his words. Let the words go in through their ears, be ground to dust by their teeth and have their bittersweet taste ingrained to their brains. 

They were free.

Because of _humans_. 

The same ones that had taken their freedom away were the ones that had granted it back. 

Although Yeonjun had felt that earlier sense of gratitude grating at his stomach, now it only made him sick.

Would they ever be able to have actual control of their fates?

A part of Yeonjun’s mind conjures Jimin. 

He too had been saved. Was he not angry upon realizing his own helplessness to save himself? 

Jimin said he was rescued five years ago. Had he been living at the SFR for all those years, then? Was Jimin nothing more than a prisoner? Imprisoned by a forced sense of gratitude towards his saviors?

Yeonjun looks up at his dear friends’ eyes and swears he can almost see his thoughts and questions mirrored, as they look back at him. 

“There are other feles here,” Yeonjun continues. “I think most of them are in their human form, but I don’t really know why.”

Hueningkai gasps softly then.

“T-The collar,” Kai whispers, like only now he noticed that his collar was no longer around his neck.

Yeonjun looks down to the floor. 

Now that attention had been brought to it, Yeonjun felt almost naked without the metal bend weighing him down. 

“They took them off almost immediately after they found us,” Beomgyu supplies, looking back at Kai and then Yeonjun.

“They said something about it being easier for the zoo to find us with them,” Taehyun added, looking pensive. “Maybe they were also used as trackers.”

All talking ceases then. 

Yeonjun wants to laugh.

They really had no idea of anything. The five had lived all their lives in the zoo yet they didn’t understand how most things worked. Didn’t even know how the collars that they’d been wearing from the moment they were brought to this cruel world, functioned. 

Helpless. Powerless. From the day they were born.

Hueningkai slowly leans closer to Soobin in search of safety. 

Yeonjun wishes he could do the same.

“Is that all you know, hyung?” Soobin looks into his eyes before asking.

He shakes his head.

“Yeah, Jimin-nim said he would tell us more,” Yeonjun says quietly.

“Who is Jimin-nim?” Soobin finally inquires what’s been on his mind.

Beomgyu looks at Yeonjun and Taehyun like the same question had been running through his mind.

“He is a feles that was rescued by the SFR,” Taehyun answers for Yeonjun. “He came into Yeonjun-hyung’s room and talked to us for a little before bringing us here. He should come at any minute now though.”

“He said he would explain everything to us, not only about the SFR,” Yeonjun says with a wavering heart. “About the zoo. About us.”

And suddenly all of them couldn't wait for that door to open, makeshift peace be damned.

...

The door indeed opens, in what Yeonjun estimates was no longer than half an hour later. He was never as good as telling time as Taehyun was, so he couldn’t be really sure. 

Like before, Jimin is not alone when he walks in. But instead of Jeongguk, Yeonjun is greeted with an unfamiliar man. He is taller than Jimin almost by a head and Yeonjun immediately looks away when their eyes briefly meet.

He didn’t know much of human beauty standards, but Yeonjun did grow up around them. Everyday humans would feed him, poke and prod at him or just come watch him through glass walls. So Yeonjun had seen his share of both disgusting and nice looking humans alike.

But that man was probably the most beautiful one Yeonjun’s simple feles eyes had ever seen. 

Not that Jimin and Jeongguk weren’t good looking too. Yeonjun especially liked Jimin’s hair color and the dark drawings on Jeongguk’s skin. He had never seen anything like it. 

There was just no denying that man was ethereal, however. And for some reason it made Yeonjun feel nervous. Intimidated.

“I’m glad to see you’re awake, Hueningkai,” Jimin says as he closes the door behind him.

Yeonjun doesn’t miss the way Jimin’s lips quirk up when Kai looks surprised at being spoken to. 

The unknown man was less composed and opened a wider smile, moving his long chocolate hair away from his eyes. 

“A-ah, thank you?” Kai manages to stammer out, unconsciously hiding behind Soobin’s big frame. 

The two seem amused at that.

“I assume Yeonjun and Taehyun informed you about me, but let me introduce myself again,” he bows. “I’m Park Jimin, this is Kim Taehyung,” Jimin’s posture loses some of its rigidness when Taehyung rests a hand on his shoulder. “We were both rescued from a zoo down south, five years ago.”

Yeonjun remembers Jimin had mentioned having almost lost his best friend when he was rescued, and can’t help but wonder if Kim Taehyung was him.

“Hello,” Taehyung’s voice is deep, juxtaposing Jimin’s soft and higher one. “I already know all of your names because I was part of your rescue mission, but you can introduce yourselves as well, if you want.”

Yeonjun’s eyes jump over his friends, wondering if any of them will comply. When they land on Soobin, Yeonjun knows he’ll take the lead.

“I’m Soobin,” he speaks up, his expression carefully blank but his body language was open.

Taehyung and Jimin nod. 

“I’m Hueningkai,” the youngest pokes his head from behind his brother, gaining himself an endeared smile from Taehyung.

“I’m Beomgyu,” Beomgyu opens a smile too, probably encouraged by Taehyung’s friendly nature. 

Yet the fact that they were all feles definitely contributed to the light atmosphere forming around them.

“Taehyun,” the boy nods curtly, and Beomgyu gives him a teasing nudge at his seriousness. 

Yeonjun looks up at the two men — the two feles. 

They were once like the five of them. Scared, imprisoned. 

How did they get to this point; where both of them could stand so tall and proud? 

Look like the masters of their fates?

Yeonjun wanted to be like that. 

“I’m Yeonjun.”

They smiled at him.

“Nice to officially meet you all,” Taehyung says with his low and warm tone. 

As he does so, Jimin pulls two chairs from the corner of the room so they can sit down.

“How are you doing?” Jimin takes a big exhale as he sits on the chair, crossing his legs with elegance. “I know it was hard to adjust when hyung, Tae and I got here.”

“Hyung?” Yeonjun asks on impulse and widens his eyes upon realizing it.

Taehyung chuckles.

“Yeah, Jimin-ah and I were rescued along with Yoongi-hyung,” Taehyung supplies. “He’d love to be down here but he's busy being all techy and stuff.”

Jimin cracks an amused smile and playfully pushes Taehyung. Yeonjun is fascinated by this new side of the man.

“Can you be more serious for once in your life?” Jimin complains but all he gets is a teasing eye roll.

“Those kids just had one of the most traumatizing nights of their lives, Jimin,” he shakes his head and looks at them with gentle eyes. “They don’t need serious.”

Yeonjun feels his chest tighten at that and he smiles despite himself. He sort of felt looked after and that was something he never felt outside their group before. For so long it was just the five of them against the world.

“How long have we been here?” Taehyun asks but the cold aggression he had when they last talked to Jimin was gone. Substituted by inquisitive eyes and welcoming expression.

He thinks Jimin doesn’t let that slip by, if his pleased expression is anything to go by.

“You woke up at nighttime, Yeonjun, and today is the day after. It’s been four days since you’ve been brought to the base.” Jimin answers promptly. “A little bit longer for a stay than usual, but not unexpected considering Hueningkai and Yeonjun’s conditions.” 

Silence fills the room and Yeonjun can see Soobin briefly nuzzle Kai from the corner of his eye. He doesn’t comment on how Taehyun and Beomgyu have huddled closer to him. 

The terror of losing each other was still fresh on their minds and hearts.

“Taehyung-nim, Jimin-nim,” Soobin’s soft voice is raised. “Where, where are we? A-And, why are we here?”

The older feles look at each other and their shoulders somehow look heavier.

“Soobin, what you have to understand is that we live in a country where others like us are heavily discriminated,” Taehyung sighs. “Feles are held captive, used as pets, sold in the black market and abused in many ways, a lot of those being legal practices,” Taehyung’s earlier cheer and friendliness seems faded then. Like the world had put a dent on it, despite his best efforts. “The mission of the Secret Feles Resistance is saving as many feles as we can, while reinforcing the message that we are people too. That we deserve rights as well.”

Not much of that was new information really. They all knew to a certain extent that they were not considered equal to humans. They were the ones in cages, after all. The ones separated from their families, the ones who suffered constant physical and emotional abuse. Forced to live with no aspirations beyond cement walls and steel bars. 

Yet hearing those words just made it all the more real. 

Feles all over the country faced the same reality. Yeonjun’s dad was not an isolated case, numerous puma shifters were killed attempting to escape. Or died due to the exploration of their bodies like Soobin’s poor mother, forced to breed until her death. 

And to know it was legal. That there would never be real repercussions for those deaths. 

Yeonjun doesn’t know if he wants to cry or yell.

“B-But why? Why are we not considered equal?” Beomgyu’s voice sounds so incredibly vulnerable, Yeonjun thinks he sees the exact moment Jimin and Taehyung’s heart strings are stretched too far.

“Many many years back there was a great conflict with humans and feles. Especially with the emergence of our species,” Yeonjun doesn’t know how, but Jimin’s soft voice managed to soothe him despite his heavy words. “Many humans were and still are afraid of our animal form and the fact that we can shift. People act irrationally when they fear. So it was decided that the best way to keep humanity safe was to imprison us all.”

Yeonjun stills. 

“In the zoo,” he starts. “T-They told us that our ancestors were bad. That we were simply atoning for their sins. Was, was that all just a lie?” 

Taehyung looks at him with a pitiful look. Yeonjun hates it.

“With no regulations and a proper system to accommodate the emerging feles, chaos was guaranteed, Yeonjun-ah,” Taehyung’s voice is gentle. “There were cases of those who hurt not only humans but other feles as well, and that obviously only contributed to the widespread fear of our kind. The belief that feles were violent mindless creatures, became widely accepted.”

“Yeah,” Jimin sighs. “Humans began attacking or cornering feles out of fear and that’s when the real violence began. Countless lives were lost, both human and feles alike. So as I said before, the government decided that the best choice for public safety, was to just exclude us from society altogether.”

That’s why their freedom was ripped from their hold? Because of irrational thinking and inability to accommodate and understand the unknown? 

Yeonjun’s future and the future of all other feles’ had been determined on the basis of the misguided actions of individuals, years in the past. 

Still, Yeonjun couldn’t swallow all the cruelty they had to face inside the zoos; the past aside, how could it ever be justified? 

He never felt welcomed by humans, never had anything but hatred or anger thrown at him. But knowing that countless humans shared the same thoughts. That what felt like the entire world, hated him and his friends for nothing more than being born. It all hurt in a way Yeonjun had never before. 

“Don’t look so sullen, kids,” Taehyung lets out a sigh. “In the last decades people have started to wake up to the cruelty that happens in and outside of zoos,” Taehyung adds, his tone adding a spark of optimism to the conversation that Yeonjun desperately needed. “That’s how the SFR started. Humans who decided to use their power to give us a fighting chance. And thanks to them, to the SFR, many of us have been saved and given freedom. Like you five have.”

Jimin and Taehyung give them open, welcoming smiles. Eyes so incredibly soft and sympathizing; a look only someone who had gone through what they had could give. 

Yeonjun’s head is left buzzing. Filled to the brim with so many thoughts and feelings he thinks they will all soon overflow and drown him from inside out. 

A quick glance around him and he finds his friends in a similar state. They all had pensive to overwhelmed expressions in varying degrees.

Taehyung and Jimin seemed well aware of that. 

“There is too much outside this base for us to explain to all of you in just a few hours,” Jimin says with a kind smile, effortlessly lifting the weight and the pressure around them. “One of the main reasons that we are here is to actually talk to you about shifting.”

Hueningkai’s eyes widen.

“As you may have already noticed, you no longer have your collars,” Jimin looks at all of them with something Yeonjun vaguely recognizes as pride. Yeonjun can’t help but wonder why. “That means you are now able to shift, and we are here to aid you in doing so.”

“Why do we have to shift?” Taehyun inquires, the curiosity in his tone is not masked. 

Yeonjun can’t help but focus all his attention on the two men before him. 

Since he had woken up without the collar he couldn’t help but wonder the same. 

He also couldn’t deny deep down he really wanted to shift, to experience another part of himself. One Yeonjun never imagined he would get to meet. Even if it came in the form of a human. 

“The truth is that we always face the possibility of being invaded or discovered, and the safest way to avoid the apprehension of all the feles here is to remain shifted,” Taehyung explains. “As of now, one can only know the true identity of a feles through blood testing. All other methods are not completely reliable, so by shifting we reduce our dangers by a considerable amount simply with our appearance.”

“Oh, so that’s why we have to shift?” Hueningkai asks once again.

“Yes,” Taehyung nods. “That and because indifferently to the future you choose, being in your animal form is not safe outside of this room.”

“Future we choose?” Yeonjun feels his heart beat faster in his chest. 

They would be given such power?

“That’s the other reason we have come here.” Taehyung says simply, a playful smile on his lips.

“Our leader will be having a meeting where he will explain it all to you, but you five will have two paths to choose from, now that you’re free,” Jimin clarifies Taehyung’s attempts at being mysterious. “You will just have to understand that this is probably the last time you will be in your animal form for a while.”

“R-Really?” Beomgyu asked.

“Yeah, it’s just not really safe,” Jimin looks at him sympathetically. 

“When was the last time you two shifted?” Soobin speaks up.

Taehyung sighs theatrically, moving his chocolate locks as he titled his head to the side.

“Hmm, probably four years ago,” he says, a hand resting on his chin.

“Four years?” Beomgyu’s loud voice echoes inside the pristine walls and Yeonjun doesn’t hold in his snicker.

“Yeah,” Taehyung smiles. “I shifted more during the first year I was rescued because I wasn’t that comfortable with my human form,” he explains. “But once I was, I understood I shouldn’t shift unless absolutely needed. And so far it has been four years.’

Jimin nods in show of agreement. 

“Yeah, you will all adapt to your human form in different ways and different paces, but the sooner you do so the better,” Jimin says. “Except you, Hueningkai. We’ve been told it is a bit too early for you to do so, there’s a risk it will open your wounds.”

Hueningkai looks upset at that.

“Really? But I wanted to shift so bad!” he whines and Soobin looks at him like he is the single most adorable thing in the world.

“Ning, don’t be a brat,” Taehyun teases his friend, receiving Kai’s vengeful tail straight to his face.

“We can’t stop you from doing anything now that your collar is off,” Taehyung shakes his head, amused with their antics. “I would hate to tell you what you can and can’t do with your body, like the zoos do. But we suggest you not to, you know? Friendly advice, wait a couple more days.”

Yeonjun feels light, lighter than he’s ever felt.

_They were looking out for them._

“Feles heal faster than regular humans and we have a very good doctor in our hands,” Jimin hums. “Yeonjun’s wound was less serious so although it might hurt, he should be fine. You will be better in a couple days' time, Huening.” 

Hueningkai’s pouty expression doesn’t get any better.

“What a baby,” it’s Beomgyu’s time to tease and Yeonjun giggles at the sour look Kai shoots at him.

...

“Okay,” Taehyung exhales. “I want all of you to take a deep breath — also, spread out a little, you don’t want to be too close to each other,” he fusses, Beomgyu giggling at Taehyung’s expression. 

Jimin just watched his friend with amusement, his arms crossed and back leaned on one of the walls.

“Uh, okay,” his shakes his head. “It’s been a while since I’ve walked someone through shifting so, bear with me kiddos,” Taehyung sighs for what feels like the tenth time yet.

“Why do you keep calling us kiddos, we can’t be that much younger than you,” Hueningkai whispers from the safety of his bed, still upset he couldn’t shift. 

“I’ll let you know that I am way older than you,” Taehyung huffs. “I’m a grown twenty-two-year-old man, you’re barely out of diapers.”

They all erupt in laughter and soon the youngest joins them too. 

Yeonjun catches Jimin looking at Taehyung with admiration coloring his features. The man managed to take all their worries and fears away effortlessly, and for that, Yeonjun too admired him.

“Okay,” Taehyung stretches. He reaches his arms up high, which makes his black t-shirt ride up from his beige pants, exposing his bare skin.

Yeonjun just barely makes out the huge scar across Taehyung’s lower abdomen and feels shivers run through his body. 

Yeah, Taehyung was definitely the best friend Jimin almost lost five years ago.

“Close your eyes,” the man instructs and Yeonjun complies easily. “It’s not a necessary step for shifting, but you need to be fully focused on it when you do, so closing your eyes helps. Once you get the hang of it in a few days, you’ll be able to do it almost effortlessly.”

They all nod silently.

“We’re going to do this one at a time,” Taehyung continues. “Jimin will be ready with some sheets to cover your nakedness, because shocker, you can’t materialize clothes out of thin air.”

Beomgyu giggles again and Yeonjun thinks he distantly hears Taehyun tease him.

“Yeonjun, you’re the oldest so you get to go first!” 

“Lucky me,” he sighs, feeling his steadily growing anxiety shoot up. 

“You got it, hyung,” that is undoubtedly Soobin’s voice whispering to him and it manages to soothe some of his nerves.

Yeonjun nods.

He’s got it.

“Yeonjun-ah, I want you to visualize your human form, nothing specific really, just a human frame for example,” Taehyung instructs and Yeonjun follows his every word faithfully, not wanting to mess up. “Now, and this is probably going to sound weird but, give yourself the command to shift. You can say it out loud or in your head. You’ll see that soon it will be as unconscious as how your brain tells your limbs to move.”

Yeonjun breathes, trying to steady his racing heart and focus on the image he had on his head. It’s not a clear one, it’s fuzzy around the edges but Yeonjun is almost sure that the visualization is also just a method to get him to concentrate. 

He takes another lungful of air and thinks, _shift_.

It hurt. His shoulder especially hurt an awful lot. Not nearly as much as when the keepers would give him a beating or when he was shot, but it was not a pleasant experience. 

As Yeonjun feels his bones start rearranging he can’t help but scratch that thought completely. It was beyond not pleasant; it was incredibly uncomfortable. 

But just as soon as it starts, it ends. 

Yeonjun finds himself swaying on what are now, his two feet. He fears he’ll fall but suddenly there is a firm chest behind him and silky sheets enveloped around him. 

“Hey, there,” Jimin’s soft voice speaks from behind him. “Don’t worry, I got you.”

Yeonjun feels Jimin’s arms circle around his torso and he tries his best to follow where he leads. 

“Huh,” Jimin huffs. “Why are you so tall?” he whines to himself and Yeonjun’s thoughts would’ve lingered there if his mind didn’t feel woozy and his body tingly. Without his fur, he also couldn’t help but feel cold. 

Jimin places him on the spare bed, parallel to Hueningkai’s, keeping his hands on Yeonjun’s shoulders so he wouldn’t topple over.

Yeonjun breathes with certain difficulty, completely foreign to the weight of his body, to his new center of balance. He blinks repeatedly trying to clear his mind and eventually he makes out Jimin’s gentle face before him.

“There you go, Yeonjun-ah,” the older feles opens a tiny smile. “It feels really weird at first, but the worst has passed. Some people can’t make through the initial shock so easily or quickly. You’re strong,” he pats Yeonjun’s head and Jimin’s eyes disappear as his smile widens.

Yeonjun just watches Jimin straighten up with his face slack, eyes wide. He pans them down to his lap and is met with the sheets Jimin covered him up with. Yeonjun moves and watches completely captivated, as a human hand slips through the fabric. 

That’s his hand. 

_Yeonjun has a hand._

A breathless chuckle leaves his throat and he begins to move the hand around. His laugh growing giddy as he realizes once again, that that’s his hand. He closes his eyes as if to take in all of his body and giggles when he figures out he can move his toes. 

When Yeonjun opens his eyes again he is met with Taehyung, Jimin and Hueningkai watching him closely. 

“W-Woah, hyung,” the youngest lets out, mouth open wide. “Y-You did it!”

Yeonjun doesn’t know why he can feel tears start to well up in his eyes as he smiles so freely to Hueningkai.

“I did, Ning,” he lets out choked up.

Maybe it was because he was now experiencing a whole new type of freedom. Meeting a whole new part of himself. 

Yeonjun couldn’t stop his few quiet tears. 

“Hey! Nope, don’t even think about it!” Taehyung speaks up when he notices the other three boys trying to peek. “I want complete focus, you can take a look at Yeonjun’s pretty face once you shift.”

His eyes widen.

“It’s true, hyung! Your face is not ugly!” Hueningkai adds euphoric and Taehyung lets out a hearty laugh, carefully patting the head of the young puma.

Yeonjun feels his cheeks warm and looks at Jimin worriedly. He never felt such before. The other just dimissises it with a waving hand and approaches Yeonjun with something in his hand. 

“Here, you can check it for yourself,” the man extends the object in his hand and suddenly Yeonjun is met with someone else looking back at him.

He yelps.

“W-What,” Yeonjun stammers out and Jimin smiles. 

“It’s your reflection,” he explains.

Yeonjun reaches for the soft black hair falling on his forehead with a hand, and his eyes widen when the reflection follows. 

Yeonjun had only seen a mirror once in his life before and adding the shock of his human form just made it all the more exciting. 

Hueningkai was right, Yeonjun’s human form was indeed not ugly. And although he probably wouldn’t have cared if it was, Yeonjun can’t help but appreciate it. 

He has a nice nose and pouty lips and nice monolid eyes. He’s surprised when the irises he remembers being of a yellow hue the last time he’d seen himself in the mirror, now looked greenish. 

“So what do you think?” Jimin asks, quickly glancing at Taehyung as he helped Soobin shift. 

“It’s a nice face,” he says softly and gains some laughs from the other boys.

“Ah, what do you think I’m going to look like, hyung?” Hueningkai asks, moving in the bed and moaning softly. The boy seemed to easily forget he had been shot in the stomach only four days ago. 

“Probably dumb,” Taehyun whispers from where he stood next to Beomgyu and Taehyung has to repress a smile himself.

“I don’t want to hear another peep from you two,” Taehyung manages to say without giving into laughter. 

“Don’t worry, Ning,” Yeonjun whispers. “I’m sure you’ll look fine.”

The boy sighs.

“I hope I’m tall,” he says to himself, daydreaming. 

Yeonjun smiles.

“At least taller than Taehyun-hyung,” Kai adds finally and Yeonjun can see Taehyun barely biting back his comeback. 

“Woah, woah,” Taehyung suddenly exclaims, and when Yeonjun turns to look at him he catches sight of a young man in his arms. “Holy shit, and you thought Yeonjun was tall, Jiminie,” he chuckles as Jimin wraps Soobin’s body in white sheets.

Jimin settles for pouting as he helps Taehyung sit Soobin next to Yeonjun, the boy limp in their arms. 

“Think he’s taller than Joon-hyung?” Taehyung asks, sounding slightly breathless from moving Soobin’s bigger body.

“Ha, easily,” Jimin retorts, also bordering on breathless.

They finally back away from Soobin and allow Yeonjun to take a better look at him.

Suddenly he is the one that’s breathless. 

Because Soobin was beautiful. Nothing more, nothing less. Yeonjun just saw pure and unadulterated beauty and he thinks his heart has forgotten how to beat. 

But Yeonjun’s can’t settle on that train of thought for too long. Because Soobin seemed to be unconscious, as Taehyung held him by the shoulders.

“Taehyung-nim, Jimin-nim, w-why isn’t Soobin waking up?” he asks immediately, bringing his own hands to Soobin’s broad shoulders. 

“His shift was intense, Yeonjun,” Jimin says as Taehyung helps him to lean Soobin’s body against Yeonjun, for support. “He went from being a 3 ft tall puma to a human past 6ft,” he explains. “He will probably just take a little more time than you.”

He knows it wasn’t long but every second to Yeonjun felt like an eternity. Hueningkai was restless on his bed, trying to see his brother past Jimin and Yeonjun.

Taehyung eventually went back to help Beomgyu and Taehyun complete their shift, reassuring them that Soobin would be fine. 

Yeonjun keeps his arms firm around Soobin, attentive to any movements he might make. He only softens his hold when pretty grey eyes open to meet his and breathing is suddenly a little easier.

Yeonjun smiles relieved.

“Hey Binnie,” he whispers as Soobin regains consciousness, blinking to adjust his eyes. “Welcome back,” he exhales deeply.

Soobin takes a few seconds to regain his balance and Yeonjun realizes he is now supporting the weight of his torso on his own. He looks back to Yeonjun, like he finally understood who he was.

Soobin’s eyes widen. 

“Hyung?” Soobin whispers, eyes running over Yeonjun’s new form with awe. 

“Yeah, it’s me,” Yeonjun chuckles. 

Soobin moves to untangle his hand from the sheets and like Yeonjun before, he looks mesmerized by every movement his body makes. 

Once he grows accustomed to his hand, Soobin raises it to softly touch Yeonjun’s cheek. It made Yeonjun’s heart hiccup inside his chest and his face feel hot again.

“Wow,” it’s Soobin’s turn to chuckle this time, his big hand gently carresing Yeonjun’s face and then hair. “You look human!”

Yeonjun nods and doesn’t think twice before wrapping his arms around Soobin’s tall frame. It felt different, to hug Soobin. But Yeonjun really liked it. 

He liked it a lot.

“You look human too, you dummy,” Yeonjun whispers against Soobin’s ear and the younger boy follows his lead, wrapping his arms around Yeonjun’s torso. 

“Yeah, I do,” Soobin giggles. “We both do.”

When they separate Jimin has the mirror ready in his hand. Soobin hesitantly takes it and his lips form a circle as he looks at his own reflection. 

“Oh, so that’s me,” he says softly and Yeonjun giggles, reaching his hand to touch Soobin’s face like the boy had done to him. 

His eyebrows raise. 

“Soobin! Your cheeks!” Yeonjun gasps and the other boy looks at him alarmed.

“W-What? It’s something wrong with them?”

“No! They’re so soft!” Yeonjun coos and pinches the soft skin of Soobins’s cheeks between his fingers. 

“H-Hyung!” Soobin whines, flustered but Yeonjun didn’t pay much mind.

“Oh my,” Yeonjun whispers to himself, playing with Soobin’s squishy cheeks, when he feels a hand rest on his head.

“You had me scared for a second there, Yeonjun-ah,” Jimin lets out a breathless chuckle.

Yeonjun whispers an apology.

“Okay, great, can I please see my hyung now?” Hueningkai whines. “You know? My own brother?” 

Soobin no longer required assistance, so there was no need for Jimin to stand in front of him in case he fell. 

“Yeah, go ahead,” Jimin says as he moves to stand beside Yeonjun.

Hueningkai opens the widest smile when he finally sees Soobin.

“Soobin-hyung!” Hueningkai exclaims. “You’re also not ugly!” he speaks loudly and Soobin laughs. 

“Yeah, definitely not,” Yeonjun shakes his head.

Everything went smoothly after Soobin shifted, Beomgyu and Taehyun not facing any major difficulties like he had. With the exception of Taehyun’s disappointment in his own height.

“What are you even pouting for? You’re still taller than me!” Jimin says to Taehyun, the boy crossing his arms at the comment.

“I mean, that’s not very hard to do,” Taehyung whispered to Yeonjun but the way Jimin scowled was proof that he had not been so discreet.

“Yeah, but still shorter than all my hyungs,” Taehyun huffed. 

Beomgyu threw an arm around the younger boy. 

“Not everyone can be this blessed, Hyunnie,” he teased and soon all of Taehyun’s fury was directed at him.

Jimin and Taehyung arranged so there would be enough beds for all of them to spend the remainder of Kai’s recovery in his room. Yeonjun was grateful, because his friends were the only reason he hadn’t lost his mind with the brute change in direction his life suddenly took.

“They are hospital beds, but it beats the floor,” Taehyung had said once Jimin left to talk to someone about the beds. 

Yeonjun didn’t know how to tell him that hospital beds were the first and only beds he had ever laid on. 

While the beds were relocated to Kai’s recovery room, Taehyung got them all clothes to wear and took each of them on a trip to the bathroom. He was through in explaining how human appliances work, because none of the boys were very familiar with them. Or clothes.

Yeonjun admitted to having had some trouble with all the holes there were on a t-shirt but he figured it out soon enough.

The clothes they were given were different from the ones Jimin and Taehyung wore; a pair of black sweatpants and a plain t-shirt. Yeonjun liked how soft they felt against his skin.

“These are the clothes we distribute around here for the feles who are rescued,” Taehyung explains as he smoothes out the wrinkles on Yeonjun’s shirt. “Once you make your decision tomorrow about what you want to do next, we can probably arrange clothes that you like, instead.”

Yeonjun didn’t know the first thing about clothes but he liked that Taehyung always reminded him that he could make his own choices.

He looked down at Taehyung with admiring eyes. 

The man had grown so much on him on the span of a single day. 

Yeonjun was always the oldest in the cell, and being around Jimin and Taehyung made him curious about what is was like having a hyung. 

“Thank you,” Yeonjun says truthfully and Taehyung messes up his hair in a teasing manner.

“Don’t sweat it,” Taehyung smirks. “Literally, we are all behind on laundry and I think you will have to stick with this for a while.”

Yeonjun smiled until he couldn’t see well.

Tomorrow they would meet their leader; the leader of the SFR. The place that kept surprising Yeonjun at every corner. 

Tomorrow Yeonjun and his friends would get to decide their fates, something he longed for all of his life. 

Yeonjun could hardly wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaa! what did you think?
> 
> this chapter was only edited by me (and im constantly sleep-deprived :)) so im sorry if there are any kinks. ill maybe edit it back once my friend and almost beta reads it over! feel free to leave me constructive criticism, it's always welcomed.
> 
> i give a bunch of updates on twt so you can check it out if you're wondering when the next one will be out! (which will be probably in two weeks?) 
> 
> \- [twitter](https://twitter.com/BlueMoon_Three)
> 
> ALSO,, i made them profiles :) (more to come as the rest of the cast is introduced!)
> 
> \- [profiles](https://twitter.com/bluemoonthree/status/1289807279202525184?s=20)
> 
> i hope you are all doing well and are taking care of yourselves. my dms are open to anyone that needs someone to talk to<333 
> 
> can't wait to read all your comments! see you next chapter!

**Author's Note:**

> \- [twitter](https://twitter.com/BlueMoon_Three)


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